Dear Stoner: What is up with 4/20? Why is that like the St. Paddy's Day for potheads? Nada Mota Dear Nada: The most plausible explanation comes from Huffington Post reporter Ryan Grim. A story he wrote in 2009 describes how five kids at San Rafael High School in the early 1970s heard about a clandestine pot-grow operation that had been abandoned. They decided to meet up at 4:20 one afternoon after school to search for it. Although they never found the crop, they continued to use the phrase as a code for smoking herb. So how did this catchphrase used by a small group of California high-school kids spread far and wide? According to Grim, the missing link was the Grateful Dead. One of the kid's dads was friends with the band, so all of the teens were Deadheads by default. They began spreading the 4/20 reference around that community, using it when getting high with the Dead and their hangers-on. But the real explosion came during the band's Christmas 1990 Oakland run, when Celebrity Stoner founder and former High Times editor Steve Bloom was handed a flier in the parking lot before the show advertising the first organized mass 4/20 gathering. The secret stoner event was held at Mt. Tamalpais outside of Mill Valley; Bloom wrote it that May, and High Times continued to use the term over the years. With time, it spread from herb smoker to herb smoker - until it developed into the annual celebration of activism and getting high that it is today. [continues 174 words]
Dear Stoner: My wife was telling me that she heard on TV that smoking pot can cause strokes in older folks. I'm 63 and just a little concerned. Any truth to this rumor? Roberto Reefer Roller Dear RRR: Back in February, a New Zealand scientist said he had found a link between cannabis use and certain types of strokes in people under the age of 55. Out of 160 stroke patients, 16 percent tested positive for marijuana. That was twice as high as the number of cannabis users in a control group with similar conditions and signs, but who had not progressed to a stroke. While the scientists and news media made a big deal out of those findings, they downplayed the more important part of the study: All but one of the 16 percent smoked cigarettes, which can more than double the risk of having an ischemic stroke. [continues 282 words]
This month I'll mark my third anniversary of reviewing medical marijuana dispensaries for Westword as the country's first MMJ critic. In that time, I've written about more than 150 dispensaries, smoked at least 546 grams of cannabis and tested out nearly two ounces of assorted hash, kief and oil. Not bad for a job that I originally thought was going to be a short-lived stunt. That's not to say I didn't take the job seriously - I did - but back in the fall of 2009, the mainstream media wasn't taking the MMJ industry seriously, much less giving it the attention that 60 Minutes just did in its October 21 report. And while that was shortsighted, it was also easy to understand. Growers were opening up ragtag shops and selling anything they could move to patients pumped just to be able to buy legal marijuana. So many dispensaries popped up on South Broadway that the stretch became known as "Broadsterdam." [continues 715 words]
